A Kiss Before Dying
by Lexicon04
Summary: Steve never forgot that conversation he had with the dying girl in his apartment. He never forgot what she did right before she died. And he never forgot that it was his fault he didn't save her.


**Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers, or Marvel, or any of the characters minus my OC. **

**This is something I thought up very randomly one day, but I had a blast writing it. I love tragedies, only this one isn't as tragic if you are dedicated enough to stick with this all the way to the end. Enjoy!**

It started out as a normal day- or at least, as normal as it could get in the Avengers Tower. Natasha was chasing Tony around with her gun, screaming at him for booby-trapping her room. Clint was becoming increasingly frustrated as he tried to teach a confused Thor about X-box and Bruce was hiding out in the lab.

Steve just wanted five drama-free minutes, which apparently is too much to ask if you live with a Stark. So he quietly snuck out of the building and went to his old apartment. He didn't feel like selling it because it was such a great getaway. Steve sighed, enjoying those few moments of being alone, and knowing nobody else would come and bother him.

That's when he heard the screaming.

* * *

Jen was completely focused on her mission. The man she'd been chasing was slowing down, and she knew she'd catch up to him in a matter of seconds.. Suddenly he stopped, as if he knew this would end with his death. He straightened up, seemingly accepting his downfall with dignity.

Then he did what Jen never would have suspected. He turned around to face her- and he shot her in the side. Jen gave a startled scream of surprise, and anger. How dare he…? She didn't feel the pain yet. Too much adrenaline coursed through her veins, causing everything to go hazy. Her world tinted red, the color of blood.

What happened next was something even Jen couldn't explain properly. She never knew what drove her to climb the fire escape of the nearest apartment building, clutching her wounded left side like her life depended on it. She never understood why she randomly burst through a window, the glass shattering around her, cutting her in several places.

That's when Jen really felt the pain.

* * *

Steve was confused. Had he just imagined the screaming? He hadn't heard anything else. It was strange. Then, all of a sudden, he heard one of the windows in his apartment shatter.

Steve jumped in surprise. How…? Cautiously, he walked towards the impact, wondering if it had just been a stray bullet. But then he saw the girl on the floor.

Even with her face twisted in pain, she was very pretty. Her eyes were unusually bright and sharpened in agony, but a clear, bright blue. Steve was suddenly intrigued by the expression on her face. She was in pain, yes, but she seemed determined not to show it.

"I swear," she gasped, agony etched on every line of her face, "I don't mean to hurt you. I just… I didn't want to be…" she didn't finish the sentence. Her midnight black hair fell into her eyes, and she didn't bother to push it away.

"Ma'am, are you all right?" Steve asked, kneeling down by her. He wasn't exactly sure what else to say. Although Steve was used to odd situations, this one was definitely new.

"I'm fine." She lied, pulling herself up into a sitting position against the wall. "I'm Agent Jen Kingston, with S.H.I.E.L.D." she introduced herself, but she was only half paying attention to the words. Her bright eyes were focused on Steve.

"Steve Rogers, ma'am." Steve said. He eyed Jen, whose mouth was open in shock

"You're Captain America, aren't you?" It wasn't a question. Not really. "Captain, I'm sorry about…" Jen started.

Steve interrupted. "It's all right, I don't mind. And please call me Steve."

She grinned a little. "Call me Jen, then. There isn't much point in formalities when you're dying."

Steve started. "Dying?"

Jen let her hands fall from her side, and Steve was horrified to see they were covered in blood.

"It's not as bad as it looks." Jen said hurriedly, seeing the look on his face. But her lie failed when a particularly painful wave of agony washed over her, and she hunched over, trying not to scream. "Please don't call the hospital. Not even the S.H.I.E.L.D hospital."

"Jen, you're bleeding. You need help." Steve said, but Jen just shook her head.

"Please, please don't get help. Just leave it." she begged, as he tried to staunch the flow of blood. "I don't care if I got shot, just leave it."

"Is that why you screamed?" Steve asked quietly.

Jen glared. "Not because it hurt, if that's what you mean. I was mad."

Steve gave a startled laugh. This girl was so strange to him. She screams after she gets shot- not because it hurts, but because she's angry they finally caught her. Jen looked pleased with herself for making him laugh.

The light mood faded almost immediately. There were so many things Steve wanted to ask, and so much he wanted to find out. But he figured Jen had three hours at most, if she didn't get medical help.

"What I don't get," Steve said, "is why you jumped through a window after you'd been wounded." He just wanted to keep the conversation going.

"Um… I don't really get that part either. I don't know what I was doing." Jen lied, biting her lip. "I'm guessing it didn't help me in any way, though." She realized that she couldn't feel the pain as much anymore. Maybe she was getting used to it, or maybe Steve was distracting her from it.

"Tell me something." Jen said. She was so afraid he might leave, she had to make sure he would stay.

"What should I say?"

"Anything. Just talk about something completely insignificant." Jen demanded. She wondered if anything Captain America had to say would be insignificant.

Steve sat down next to her and started to talk about his life before, in the forties. Mostly just little things- what his best friend Bucky got up to, dancing, movies he watched. Jen liked the feel of this conversation- like two friends catching up after a long time, just bursting with things to tell each other. And Steve really was an interesting person.

Steve found it strangely easy to talk to her. It felt like he'd known her forever, not like he just met her. What Steve liked most was that she actually listened to him. He realized he'd been waiting for someone to listen ever since he woke up in the wrong century. Jen made him feel halfway human again. And the more he talked to her, the more he realized he didn't want her to die.

Pain suddenly started crippling Jen again, streaking up and down her left side like knives. She gasped and wrapped her arms tightly around herself like that could stop the agony.

"Jen?" Steve asked, concerned.

Jen felt a strange, rushing tension, almost like a deep breath before you jump off a cliff. "I'm fine." She tried to brush it off. The tension started building up, getting more and more bothersome to her.

Steve raised his eyebrows skeptically. "You look half dead, Jen."

"Well, if you haven't noticed, I am half-dead." Jen miserably failed in trying to keep it light. She kept her arms wrapped around her torso.

"Steve… um, there actually was a reason I jumped through your window." Jen confessed suddenly, the words tumbling out of her mouth without consent.

"Why?" he said.

"Well…" she bit her lip, like she did when she was nervous. "One of my biggest fears is dying alone. And I thought it would be better to have some stranger with me while I died rather than wake up recovered in the hospital alone."

"I won't let you die alone, Jen." Steve said, and it seemed very natural that he reach out and stroke her raven black hair. Jen sighed and leaned against his shoulder. Even in this moment, feeling more comforted than ever, she felt the tension underlying it all.

Then it hit her.

That strange tension, the deep breath before the plunge.

She was afraid to die.

Never in her whole life had Jen felt so vulnerable than when she silently admitted this fact. Master spies weren't afraid of something like death. Some are even prepared to kill themselves if they get caught. Only now did Jen realize she'd never be able to do such a thing. Jen had taken many lives, but her own had always been too valuable.

And now she refused the chance of life, right when she might just have found a reason for it.

Jen curled up into Steve's side, like she might be able to draw some of his strength for her own. For a while everything had looked perfectly clear, but now the world had gone hazy again. A soft but somehow agonizing pain kept her paralyzed.

Steve noticed Jen had gone silent. He'd been so caught up in the feel of her body in such close proximity to his, he hadn't noticed her eyes start fluttering. Or the way her skin was burning up, even though she shivered slightly.

"Jen?" he whispered. "Please stay awake." What if she never spoke to him again? Steve wasn't ready to say goodbye. But, would he ever be?

"I'm trying." She muttered. Her eyes were still fluttering, like she was determined to keep them open for just a while longer. Steve guessed she'd lose the fight soon. Panic gripped him like it hadn't since he drove that HYDRA plane into the ocean. Never in his life had Steve felt so helpless, and he hated it.

Jen suddenly gripped the front of his shirt with a strength he didn't think possible given her condition. The blood on her fingers stained the fabric, but Steve was beyond caring at this point. She pulled him closer, and he obeyed the pressure without thinking. Then she did something Steve never anticipated.

She kissed him.

For one moment, their lips met in a very brief, chaste kiss that held all the emotion either of them could bear. "Thank you." Jen whispered, and her grip on Steve's shirt loosened. It seemed as if all her strength left her body, and she slumped to the floor.

* * *

It was an out-of-body experience for Steve.

He thought his blood had frozen in his veins, as it so often felt these days. His brain couldn't process anything that had just happened. Warmth, panic, grief, and confusion all rolled together into one endless, bewildering emotion he couldn't put a name to. The fact Jen's soft, warm lips had been pressed to his one second and dead and cold the next Steve couldn't make sense of.

He couldn't bear to look at her. He didn't want to look back on her and remember what she looked like once life abandoned her. He didn't want this memory at all.

Steve found his phone and stated dialing a number- the number of the only person who might help him. The tears hadn't started yet. He felt like he'd lost the ability to cry.

She answered on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Natasha, I need your help."

Steve never noticed the faint rise and fall of Jen's chest behind him.

* * *

Jen opened her eyes in an unfamiliar room, although she knew exactly where she was. The beeping of the heart monitor next to her, the bland walls, the uncomfortable starchiness of the sheets….

She gasped, anger and disappointment welling up inside her as she realized what happened. The heart monitor started beeping faster.

_Why? Why?_ The word pounded through her head. Why had they let her live?

In her peripheral vision, Jen saw a flash of red. "Natasha?" she asked. Her voice sounded shaky, rough and low with frustration.

"Be careful, Jen." Was her answer.

"Maybe I don't want to be careful." Jen growled, glaring at the redhead assassin next to her bed. Then she blurted, "Where's Steve?"

"He was called in." Natasha said, offering no more explanation.

"But he wouldn't have… he promised…" Jen shook her head, trying to make sense of things. Steve would have stayed by her side the whole time. He would've been here the moment she woke up. Unless…

"He doesn't know I'm alive." Jen said.

Natasha simply stared. But Jen could see the answer in her eyes. "Why, Nat? You knew I didn't die. Why didn't you tell him?"

Natasha sighed. "Jen, you know the drill. The project you're working with requires that you go deep undercover. No contact with anybody. He can't know you're alive."

Jen just stared down at nothing. Natasha was completely right, and there was nothing she could do about it. Would she never be allowed to see Steve again? Jen found that she hated the idea right away. No, that wasn't an option. Not for her.

"You know I was offered a spot in the Avengers a couple weeks ago?" Jen said, hope suddenly started to filter through the darkness.

"Yes. But I never thought you'd take it. Saving the world was never your forte." Natasha stated.

"It isn't yours, either. Look, Nat, I'm so sick of being alone. I hate having no contact with other people, I hate running all the time. Maybe it's time I move on." Jen pleaded desperately.

"I understand." Natasha said, and relief washed over Jen.

"Thank you." She sighed, settling as comfortably as possible on her flat hospital pillows. Natasha started to leave.

"I'll tell Fury about your decision. I'll let you tell Rogers when you're ready."

"You're the best, Nat." Jen smiled, an fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Steve thought a lot about Jen the next few weeks. He still wasn't sure if those few hours with her had been a dream, and whether it was a good dream or his worst nightmare. Jen confused him like that.

Then he noticed the broken window, and the glass scattered all over the floor. Some of the pieces had blood on them. His carpet had a red stain on it where Jen had sat, blood rolling from the wound on her side. Then her was forced to realize he hadn't dreamt Jen up.

He never cried, but merely sat very, very still and thought about it. Tried to process it. She hadn't wanted to die alone, and he talked to her to try and make it easier for her. Then she kissed him, and she died. This part confused Steve the most.

Why did she kiss him? Just to say thank you, or because she actually wanted to?

He realized that, even though he'd only spent three hours with her, that he liked Jen. He missed her. And even though she was dead, he kept hoping she might show up one day and press her lips to his again, that sparkle shining in her eyes when she laughed. And Steve tried to come to terms with the fact that she never would.

Steve suddenly hated his small apartment. The walls seemed to claustrophobic, and the air was pressing down on him from all sides. It was like drowning all over again, even when the air clearly slipped in and out of his lungs. He walked out of the building, trying not to run, yet Steve's feet still slapped agitatedly on the ground, itching to move faster.

He walked onto the streets of New York with no particular goal in mind. Steve started memorizing the sights around him, scrutinizing every detail of the buildings, the cars, even the people. It kept his mind off more unpleasant things.

Suddenly he locked eyes with a woman far ahead of him in the crowd of people. What prompted Steve to look at her, he didn't know. She just stood out. Immediately, Steve recognized the clear shade of blue those eyes were. He stopped walking, making everyone around him protest angrily, like a bunch of hissing bees.

But Steve didn't care.

Jen stared at him, not smiling, but simply memorizing his face. She walked towards him, her eyes sparkling. Steve wondered if he might be hallucinating. Maybe he'd gone crazy. Jen was dead. But suddenly he couldn't be so sure, not when she seemed to radiate so much life. Jen stopped right in front of Steve, inches from his face.

She smiled and held out one finger, beckoning him to follow.

**THE END! Seriously. I will leave you with this horrible cliffhanger forever wondering what will happen next. **

**I'm sorry. Really. Maybe if you ask nicely I will turn this into a two-shot, complete with a happy ending and all cliffhangers resolved. Until then, I hope you enjoyed the story. I had so much fun writing this one, hopefully it showed. **

**Feedback is always appreciated! Happy reading, my lovelies~~**

**-Lexie ;)**


End file.
